Bourbon and Friendship
by Catherine4
Summary: Set after the end of episode 5x10. Hailey Upton pays Jay Halstead a visit with a bottle of bourbon and the offer of company.


_I added an extra scene onto the end of episode 5x10. Upton pays Halstead a visit with a bottle of bourbon and the offer of company._

 _Hello all. I really enjoyed last weeks episode and I really like Hailey Upton. Her and Halstead are great together, I'd love them to be close friends kind of the way Severide and Shay were on_ Fire _back in the day. This is just my take on what could have happened later that night. No romance, just comfort. I hope you enjoy! As always, feed back is always appreciated._

There was a knock at the door.

Halstead lay on the couch in a drunken haze and rubbed his eyes, wondering whether it was worth the effort to drag himself from this spot and go and answer the door. After Voight had left he had grabbed a six pack from the fridge and was systematically finishing one bottle after another. The last thing he wanted to do was to process the events of that day. He just wanted to forget.

The knock came again, louder this time. Halstead groaned.

"Open up Jay, I know you're in there."

Upton hammered on the door again and Jay's head felt like it was about to split in two. He tripped on the rug as he stumbled to the door, cursing as he did so. When he finally opened the door to his partner he was even more agitated than before.

"I tried to call you. It went to voicemail."

"I turned my phone off. If you came here to give me a lecture, I'm not interested." Jay pulled the door open and headed back into his apartment without even making eye contact.

"That's not why I'm here."

Hailey sighed, stepping over the threshold after him and surveying the wreck that his apartment had become. Jay threw himself back onto the couch and popped the cap off another beer bottle.

Hailey stood with her arms folded. She watched Jay take a long drink of his beer as she decided the best course of action. They hadn't been partners for long, but she thought she knew him well enough to know that something was badly wrong and that he wasn't a guy to readily talk about his feelings without some coaxing. She'd come to his apartment with two options in mind. The first involved some tough love and a visit to Voight to demand he get counselling for whatever was eating away at him. The second involved a bottle of bourbon and a more gentle, solo approach. She decided on the latter.

"Scoot over" she said, pushing Jay's feet to the floor. "Man…" she said, throwing a pile of dirty laundry to the floor to make room on the couch "this place is a mess."

"What do you want, Hailey? I know you didn't come here to give me housekeeping tips."

Upton pulled a bottle of liqueur from her pocket and slung her jacket on the coffee table, piled high with magazines and empty bottles. Jay opened one eye and saw the bottle of brown liquid and sat up slowly.

"I came to give you an update. I talked to Camila, she's agreed to keep her mouth shut. You're off the hook. This time."

Jay exhaled with relief, but it was relief tainted with sadness. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me yet. I'm not letting this go. What's going on with you Jay? Talk to me."

"Not tonight. Please. I just want to get drunk."

"If that's the case, you're not trying very hard" Hailey said, indicating the beer in Jay's hand. She unscrewed the cap on the bourbon and held it out for him. He took it reluctantly, eyeing her suspiciously.

"What's the catch?"

"No catch. Except I'm staying here tonight to make sure you don't do something stupid."

"Oh really?"

Upton caught the smirk on his face and shot him down with a look. "Steady" she said. "You can stop those thoughts right now, it's not gonna happen."

Jay let out a short laugh and took the bottle, tipping the burning liquid into his mouth. He passed it back and Hailey took a swig herself. She didn't say anything more, neither of them did. For a while they sat in silence, passing the bourbon back and forth between them. Hailey also grabbed a beer from the box on the floor and opened it with a hiss.

"How was Camila when you saw her?" Jay asked finally. His voice was quiet, as if it was an effort even to think about her.

"As alright as can be expected. She'll be charged, but she shouldn't do any jail time. You really cared for her, huh?"

Jay put his head in his hands. Being honest with himself and with his partner for perhaps the first time that day he said "yeah, I did. I lied to her about so much, and she lied to me too. But the feelings were real. I didn't have to pretend with her. I know it sounds stupid."

"No, I get it. Talking to an outsider can be easier sometimes than talking to friends and family. But you took it too far."

"I know."

"What started this? It wasn't Luis." Jay looked up and the look on his face told Hailey that she was getting somewhere. "I was there Jay, I saw you even before that kidnapping case went down. Something was up before that."

Jay turned away and Hailey could tell she was losing him. One wrong move and he'd close right off. She was beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol herself. She put the bottle down on the coffee table, for fear that any more would impair her judgement. She decided to change tactics. "My grandfather was a vet" she said. "He struggled for a long time after he came back, I was only young but I still remember these moods that would come over him. He'd withdraw from everyone and the smallest thing would set him off and bring the memories flooding back. Is that it?"

Jay grimaced. Hailey was getting too close to the bone for comfort. "I had it together, I thought I'd worked through my problems. Work was going great, I was building a life. Then Lindsay left and I guess that's all it took for the doubts to creep in. Meeting Luis Vega changed something for me. I guess I saw myself from the outside for the first time and realised that maybe I wasn't ok. Camila was just…" he trailed off. The events of the day were still too raw. He hadn't had the chance to process his feelings. It wasn't that he couldn't find the words, it was that he didn't know what he wanted to explain.

"A distraction?" Hailey offered.

Jay nodded slowly. "It sounds harsh, but yeah. I think I was that for her too, a distraction from her grief." He paused. "I mean, Ryan was." He reached forward and snatched up the bourbon bottle.

"Look Jay, I'm not a trained councillor but I can recognise PTSD when I see it. Whatever happened when you were overseas is none of my business, you don't have to tell me anything. But I think you have to tell someone. Do you go to any support groups?"

Jay shook his head. "I used to talk to Mouse." He looked across at Hailey, waiting patiently for him to continue. "He used to work in the unit, on tech. We served together in the Rangers. I used to talk to him when it got too much."

"Where is he now?"

"Afghanistan. He went back." Jay shook his head. "I didn't understand it, I still don't. The things we saw… I don't know how anyone could go back."

Hailey reached across and touched Jay's arm. Jay tensed at her touch, embarrassed, and she took her hand away.

"I'm not too good at talking about my feelings" Jay said.

Hailey smiled. "Neither am I."

"I opened up to Luis though. About Iraq. I don't know why."

"You can open up to me. You can trust me, I've got your back."

Halstead smiled. He knew. She had gone to Camila to try and save his job, she didn't have to do that. In the short time they had been partners she had always been there for him in the field. She was a great cop and a good friend and never once did she give him reason not to trust her. Even today when she had gone to Voight. He wasn't mad about that, he knew she had done it for his own good. Even this, here, getting drunk with him in his pigsty of an apartment, intuitively she had known that's what he needed.

"I don't want to see you spiral again" Hailey added when he didn't say anything for a couple of minutes.

Jay knew what she meant, but he was surprised she remembered. The stuff he'd told Camila that first evening they'd met in her apartment when he was wearing the wire, about how he was when he got home from his last tour. Upton had asked him about it the next day, if what he had said was true. He hadn't answered in words. But she knew. He was beginning to get the feeling there wasn't much he'd be able to get past her. He couldn't decide whether that was a good or bad thing.

"This is not what I expected" Jay said with a laugh. "If it was my brother, or Antonio, or even Lindsay here right now they'd probably be trying to clean this place and pouring my beer down the sink. Neither of them are great at managing their own lives but they would try to manage mine." Jay was aware that this was partly the beer and bourbon talking. He was being unfair.

"What makes you think I have my life together?" Hailey asked rhetorically. "We all have stuff we're working through. But we don't have to do it alone." She picked up the last two bottles from the six pack on the floor and held them up. "Another?"

"What the hell." He screwed the cap back on the half-finished bourbon bottle and put it back on the coffee table. "We should save this for when one of us really screws up."

Hailey popped the caps of both beers and handed one to Jay. "I'll drink to that."

"To not wrecking our careers this week" Jay said sarcastically, and they clinked the necks of their bottles together.

Hailey relaxed back into the couch and looked around the gloomy living room. "This place really is a mess though" she said, taking a sip. "You've gotta do something about that."

"Tomorrow" Jay replied. Cleaning his apartment was way down on his priority list right now. "If you come here to see me in my natural habitat, this is it."

"I came here to help. Honestly. And to see where you head was at."

"To decide if you could trust me out in the field?"

"I trust you, Jay. But I'm not sure if I trust your judgement right now."

"Everyone makes poor choices."

"True. But when most people make poor choices there aren't lives on the line."

"Hailey, come on. I can do my job, you don't have to worry."

Hailey leaned forward and moved closer to Jay. "I am worried. About you. This might be the alcohol talking, but I care about you." In response to Jay's raised eyebrow she continued. "Not like that. I'm not trying to hit on you if that's what you think. But I've finally found a good unit and a great partner and I don't want it to go wrong."

Jay smiled, not sarcastically this time, but openly. His gentle eyes reflected the smile on his lips for the first time that night. "So this is all about you, is that what you're saying?"

Hailey laughed but didn't reply, only drank her beer. "So, is there anything on TV? If we're gonna sit up in the middle of the night drinking we might as well have some sports to go along with it." She grabbed the TV remote from underneath an empty pizza box. "What time is it? I think there's a replay of the Blackhawks game on."

Jay regarded her with amusement. "You're a hockey fan?"

She shrugged. "Three brothers. I didn't have a choice."

Jay nodded approvingly and sat back. He kicked a pile of magazines to the floor and rested his feet on the table.

"Don't get too comfortable" Upton said, draining the last of her beer. "I'm out."

Halstead sighed and heaved himself up. "I have more in the refrigerator."

When he returned, he handed an open beer to Hailey without and word and they both relaxed and stared intently at the TV. Upton yelled at a missed shot at goal and threw up her hands in frustration.

He liked this. Lectures from his colleagues didn't usually come with bourbon, beer and ice hockey. He watched his partner, too absorbed in the game to notice he was watching her. This was the first time they'd really hung out outside of work, and while the cause of her coming over he would rather forget, he was kind of enjoying it. The more time Jay spent with Hailey Upton, the more he learnt about her that he liked. Perhaps this would be the one relationship in his life that was clear-cut and free of drama. Jay knew that tomorrow he'd feel terrible. Not only because he would surely be hungover, but because he'd think of Camila and the guilt would catch up with him, and because alcohol and good company were not enough to chase his demons away.

Hailey sat back again, shaking her head. She tucked her feet up on the couch, really getting comfortable. She glanced at Jay as she did so and looked at him oddly. "What?"

"Thanks" Halstead said. "For caring."

"No problem" she said with a casual shrug. "That's what partners do."


End file.
